The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-12-29

OtelnWhy hAllb huu your AChuemleS OI
Music roar with the acclamation of appre-
! ciative audiences assembled at the concert
! or the oritorio.
Still further: l commend as worthy Of
their support the gymnasium. This insti'
tuition is gaining in favor every year, and
know of nothing more free flom dissipa-
tion, or more calculated to recuperate the
physical and mental energies. While there
are q good many people who have em-
ployed this institution, there is vast num-
Der who are ignorant of its excellencies.
There are men with cramped chests and
weak sides, and respondent spirits who,
through the gymnasium, might be rouseo
| up to exhuberance and exhilaration of life,
There are many Christian people despond-
J ent from year to year who might, through
such an institution, be benefited in their
| spiritual relations. There are Christian
people who seem to think that it is good
sign 10 be poorly; and because Richard
Baxter and Robert Hall were invalids they
think that by the same sickness they may
come to the same grandeur of character.
want to tell the Christian people of my
congregation that God will hold you re.
sponsible for your invalidisni If it is your
fault, and when, through right exercise
and prudence, you might be athletic and
we'll. The effect of the body upon the
soul you acknowledge. Put man of mild
disposition upon the animal diet of which
the Indian partakes, and in little while
his blood will change its chemical pro
portions. It will become like unto tl
blood of the lion or tiger or the bear,
while his disposition will change, and be-
come fierce, cruel, and unrelenting. The
body has powerful effect upon the soul.
There are good people whose ideas of
Heaven are all shut out with clouds of to-
bacco smoke. There are people who dare
to shatter the physical vase in which God
has put the jewel of eternity. There are
men with great hearts and intellects in
bodies worn out by their own neglects-
magnificent machinery capable of propel-
ing Great Eastern across the Atlantic
vet fastened in a rickety North River pro-
peiler Martin Luther was SO mighty 70
God, first, because he had a noble SOU
and secOnjly, because he had a muscula
development which would have enabled
him to thrash any five of his prosecutors,
ii 1t had been Christian so to do. Physical
development, which merely shows itself in
fabulous lifting, or in perilous rope-walk-
ing, or in pugilistic encounter, excites only
our contempt; but we confess to great ad.
miration for the man who has great soH
in an athletic body, every nerve, muscle,
and bone of which is consecrated to right
uses. Oh, it seems to me outrageous that
men, through neglect, should allow their
physical health TO go down beyond repair.
A ship which ought, with all sail set and
every man at his post, to be carrying q
rich cargo for eternity, employing all its
men in stopping up leakages When you
may, through the gymnasium, work off
your spleen and your querulousness aud
| one-half of your physical and mental all
| ments, do not turn your back upon such a
grand medicament.
Still further: commend to you a large
class Of parlor games and recreations.
There Is way of making our homes
hundred fold more attractive than they are
now. Those parents cannot expect to keep
their children away from outside dissipa-
tions unless they make the domestic circle
brighter than anything they can find out
side OF 1t. Do not, then sit in your home
surly and unsympathetic, and with o half
condemnatory look, because of the sport
fulness of your children. You were young
once yourself; let your children be young.
Because your eyes are dim and your ankles
are stiff, do not denounce sportfulness in
those upon whose eyes there is the first
luster, and in whose foot there is the
bounding joy of robust health. 1 thank
God that in our drawing g-rooms and in our
parlors there are innumerable games and
sports which have not upon them the
least taint Of iniquity. Light up all your
homes with innocent hilarities. Do not
sit down with the rheumatism, wonder
ing how children can go on so. Rathert
thank God that their hearts are so light,
apd their laughter is SO free, and that
their cheeks are so ruddy, and that their
expectations are so radiant. The night
will annuOb and fhn baart-
break, and the pang, and the desolation-
1t will come soon enough for the dear
children. But when the storm actually
clouds the sky, it will be time enough for
you to haul out your reef tackles. Garry,
then, into your homes not only the inno-
cent sports and games which are the in
ventions of our own day, but the games
which come down with the sportfulness
of all the past ages, chess, and charades
and tableaux; and battledore and calls
themes and lawn tents, and all those
omusements which the young people of our
homes know so we'll how to contrive.
Then there will be the parloy socialities-
groups of people assembled in your homes,
with wit and mimicry and ioviality, filing
the room with JOY from the door to the
maptel, and from the carpet to the ceiling.
Oh. is there any exhilaration like scorr
of genial souls in oneiroem, each one add
inga contribution of his own individual |
merrinent to the aggregation of general
hilarity9
Suppose you want to go abroad in the |
city, then you will find the panorama and |
the art gallery and exquisite collections of |
pictures. You will find the Metropolitan |
Museum and the Historical Society rooms |
full of rare curiosities, and scores of |
places which can stand plainly the test of |
what is right and wrong in amusements. !
You will find the lecturing hall, which has |
been honored by the names of Agassiz in |
natural history, Doremus in chemistry, |
Boynton in geology, Mitchell in astronomy, |
John B. Cough in moral reform, and |
scores and hundreds OF men who have
poured their wit and genius and ingenuity |
through that particular channel upon the /
hearts and consciences and imaginations
of men, setting this country fifty years
farther in advance than it would have been
without the lecture platform.
l rejoice in the capitalization of out
door sports. hail the croquet ground
and the fsherman's rod and the sports
mans gun. In our cities life is so un-
healthy and unnatural that when the
census taker represents a city as having
401, 900 inhabitants, there are only 200, 900,
since it takes at least two men to amount
to one man, SO depicting and unnerving
and exhausting is this metropolitan life.
Wa want mora fresh cir, mora SUNLIGHT |
more OF the abandon Of field sports. / cry
out for it in behalf of the church of God
as well as in behalf of secular interests.
1 wish that this winter our ponds and out
rivers and our Capitoline grounds might be
all aquake with the heel and the shout OF
the swift skater. I wish that when the
warm weather comes the graceful oar might
dip the stream, and the evening tide be
resonant with boatman's song, the bright
prov splitting the crystalline billow. We
shall have the smooth and grassy lawn,
md we will call out people of all occu.